Surf City hosts paintball's 'most fun' tournament

April 12, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Friday morning at the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open, Kyle Spicka, 22, of the San Diego Dynasty paintball team gets shot during the opening professional match against Fort Wayne Outlaws. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Two paintball arenas are set up on the sand, just north of the Huntington Beach pier, for this weekend's National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Members of the Division I Phillie Energy II team charge into the arena during a match against the Aggressive Factory during a Friday morning Division I match at the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Thousands of unimpacted paintballs gather at the edges of the caged competition arena during Friday's competition of the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Thousands of paint balls gather at the edges of the caged competition arena during Friday's competition of the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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While maintaining defensive cover, a member of the Xclusive paintball team reloads his gun in a match against the Joint Force team. The teams played to a sudden death overtime which Joint Force won. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Friday morning at the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open, a member of the Joint Force paintball team is fully loaded with tubes of paint balls just before the start of a sudden death final against the Xclusive team. Joint force with the sudden death match. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Xclusive team player Mark LaClaire, 19, of Calgary, Alberta, dives for cover while competing in a sudden death match against Joint Force in Friday morning's Division I. The sudden death match, with three-on-three teams, was won by the Joint Force team. La Claire was trying to make his way along an outside barricade when he caught a paintball in his hair, eliminating him from the competition. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Friday morning at the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open, a competitor fires from behind a large padded barricade. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Friday morning at the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open, Blake Yarber of the San Diego Dynasty dives for cover during Friday's opening professional match between the Dynasty and the Fort Wayne Outlaws. BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Friday morning at the National Professional Paintball League's Surf City USA Open, Kyle Spicka, 22, of the San Diego Dynasty paintball team gets shot during the opening professional match against Fort Wayne Outlaws.BRUCE CHAMBERS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

HUNTINGTON BEACH – More than 100 paintball teams shot onto the beach Friday for the first day of the annual Surf City USA Open tournament, while up in the bleachers a couple of local surfing legends provided the commentary.

Lending his voice on the biggest games was longtime U.S. Open announcer Rick "Rockin' Fig" Fignetti, counting down to a new round of paintball. Watching quietly next to him was '70s U.S. surfing champion David Nuuhiwa.

They talked over the helicopter-rotor sound of balls bursting on inflatable obstacles as two teams of seven tried to capture each others' flags.

The two surfers spoke positively both of the three-day tournament, the largest event held at the beach after surfing's U.S. Open, and of paintball, which unlike surfing has a somewhat distant relationship with Surf City and Orange County.

"It keeps you awake getting hit by those balls," said Nuuhiwa, who said he used to play with his son on days with bad weather. "It's kind of cool to see it on the beach in Huntington because all we do down here is surf."

The Surf City USA Open is one of a handful of paintball tournaments held each year by the National Professional Paintball League. Tournament winners claim cash prizes and move closer to a spot in the North American championship, held in October in Las Vegas.

NPPL general manager Chuck Hendsch said he expects between 15,000 and 20,000 people to attend through Sunday. They'll see 114 teams of different skill levels expending millions of paintballs on three artificial turf fields set up on the north side of the beach.

Players can spend minutes shooting off rounds from behind one obstacle as they try to eliminate players on the opposing team. A team may throw in the towel to reset for a second round or a quick dash down a flank can clear the way to a flag capture.

"It's a game of chess you can play with all your friends," said Carlsbad resident Rodney Squires, who plays for the Camp Pendleton Raiders.

Held in Huntington Beach for the last 11 years, the Surf City USA Open is the longest consecutively run event the NPPL holds, according to league spokesman Jung Hong.

League organizers say they love holding the event in Huntington Beach. It attracts people from around the country and Europe – paintball is big in France, said Hendsch, a Huntington Beach resident.

Before the Surf City USA Open arrived, "there was no paintball here," he said.

The sport still doesn't have much of a footprint in Orange County, according to Hendsch and other local semi-professional paintballers.

"In Orange County, there's a ton of people who play but there's no real estate that would let you play," said Squires, a 42-year-old Aliso Viejo native who's played since he was 15.

He could think of about 16 paintball facilities in Riverside, Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura counties. The closest paintball fields to Orange County are in Bellflower and Camp Pendleton, he said.

Two local surfers passing the tournament grounds on their way from the beach said there was a clear culture clash between locals and the people who came to the beach

"This is kind of a bad vibe for the city," said Andy Leavelle, 29, who said he had nothing against paintball but called the tournament a "Riverside thing."

Joel Buffington, 30, lives in Huntington Beach and does both sports. He surfs three or four times a week and practices paintball once or twice each week with the Raiders in Camp Pendleton, an hour-and-10 minute drive each way.

He said there a few paintballers he sees in the water regularly: a boogie-boarding Costa Mesan and Hendsch, who paddleboards in Huntington Beach.

Nuuhiwa, the surfing champion, said the two sports can share a certain kind of aggression and that some of the good surfers play paintball.

"But riding waves is a whole different animal, the 30 or 50 foot waves," he said. "This stuff leaves a welt. That stuff will kill you."

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